A New Chytridiomycete Fungus Intermixed with Crustacean Resting Eggs in a 407-Million-Year-Old Continental Freshwater Environment.

ABSTRACT: The 407-million-year-old Rhynie Chert (Scotland) contains the most intact fossilised remains of an early land-based ecosystem including plants, arthropods, fungi and other microorganisms. Although most studies have focused on the terrestrial component, fossilised freshwater environments provide critical insights into fungal-algal interactions and the earliest continental branchiopod crustaceans. Here we report interactions between an enigmatic organism and an exquisitely preserved fungus. The fungal reproductive structures are intermixed with exceptionally well-preserved globular spiny structures interpreted as branchiopod resting eggs. Confocal laser scanning microscopy enabled us to reconstruct the fungus and its possible mode of nutrition, the affinity of the resting eggs, and their spa

SUBMITTER: Strullu-Derrien C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5156353 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature